Just Don't Call them Haredim

By Shlomo Riskin

For the past weeks the media – especially in Israel but also, unfortunately, throughout the world – has been filled with the Haredi insistence that women be separated from the men and relegated to the back of the bus in Haredi neighborhoods and that women (and even young girls) who appear dressed not in accordance with Haredi standards in Haredi – or nearby Haredi and therefore soon to become Haredi in Haredi eyes – streets can be verbally abused and even spat upon to force them off the street.

What has erupted as a result is an internecine battle of the words, with the National Religious, traditional and secular Bet Shemesh residents having staged a demonstration against the Haredim, the Haredim screaming headlines in their newspapers that they are being "attacked" (the front page headline last week in the Bet Shemesh Haredi newspaper Hadash was "The Blitz"), and Yossi Sarid writing an obscenely unfair article in HaAretz in which he attributes the attitude that "women are filthy little things, compared to dogs and pigs" to the Talmud and halakha – a scourge upon all of observant Jewry and its sacred texts.

Firstly, I would insist that the issue at hand is one for the police rather than the theologians; any extremist group which wishes to insist upon specific conduct regarding the relationships between the sexes may certainly do so, as long as either sex is not being legally victimized – but only in the privacy of their own home or their own privately paid for bus lines. No one group owns a public city bus or a public thoroughfare – even if the majority or total population of the street is Haredi. Public streets and buses are connected to other streets and other buses beyond their particular neighborhoods of origin, and hence must be available to all segments of the Israeli population.

Moreover, the majority of the funds for education come from the Israeli tax-payer. If a particular sector in Israel wishes to provide a system of education which, by not teaching secular subjects, will make it more difficult for its students to become productive citizens in the future work-force of the State, it ought be incumbent upon that sector to provide the funds for such a school (as is the case with Jewish Day Schools in the Diaspora).

There ought be a minimal core curriculum of secular and Zionist studies which is a necessary prerequisite for State funding. This is especially important since a student who has never been exposed to a great idea offered by a non-orthodox Jew will never grow up to have basic respect for anyone who is not orthodox or non Jewish; such insularity breeds the conduct taking place in the streets of Bet Shemesh.

Finally, although I certainly respect many of the values expressed by the Haredi community – such as passionate devotion to Torah study and scrupulous adherence to ritual – I object to their being called "Haredi," literally, those who tremble, as in the verse "Hear the word of the Lord, you that tremble at His word" (Isaiah 66:5).

The context of this term Haredi is most instructive. God opens this chapter of Isaiah by introducing Himself (as it were) as the God of and beyond heaven and earth, explaining which kind of people He would like to look upon: "those that are poor and of contrite spirit (not triumphalist, but subdued and self effacing), who tremble at my word" (Ibid 2).

Those for whom God has no use are the hypocrites, who "sacrifice oxen and strike out at people… who make memorial offerings of frankincense and bless evil" (Ibid3). Indeed, this chapter – the last, which ends the prophecies of Isaiah – is parallel to the very first opening chapter in which God rails against the ritual sacrifices of the wicked hypocrites, the multitude of prayers of those whose hands are filled with blood (Isaiah 1:1 -16). What God really wants from those who truly tremble at his words is "Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" (Ibid 17). In the final analysis, "Zion will only be redeemed with justice, and those who return to her, with compassionate righteousness" (ibid 27)

Jewish tradition never forbid non-sexual social commingling of the sexes (for example, Maimonides only brings up the issue of the separation of young singles during Festival dinners when there is a commandment to drink wine), ruled that Torah study must be joined together with a productive profession (Berakhot 35 and all the decisors ad loc) and praised the study of science and philosophy (Maimonides Laws of Yesodei HaTorah, end of chapter 4).

Most importantly, Micah expressed clearly who is to be considered one who trembles at God's word: "I say to you, man, what is good, and what God desires from you: only that you act justly, love kindness and walk humbly with the Lord your God" (Micha 6:8). Only such an individual, or sector, deserves to be called Haredi.